Motown legend Lamont Dozier has died aged 81.
The death of the songwriting genius who is responsible for classics including “Nowhere to Run,” "Baby Love," and “You Keep Me Hanging On,” was announced by his son Lamont Dozier Jr on Instagram.
'Rest in Heavenly Peace, Dad!!!' wrote his son alongside a picture of the pair.
Reports said an exact cause of death is yet to be confirmed.
Tributes have started pouring in for Dozier. Grammy-winning recording Brandon Williams Tweeted: "Another man that sat down and taught me a lot about music is gone. The great Lamont Dozier. I'll never forget meeting and working with him along with the Holland Brothers in 2006.
Thank you for all you did for me and for the world at large. You definitely made this place better," he added.
Born in Detroit in 1941, Dozier recorded a few unsuccessful records for different local labels before teaming up with the Holland brothers as the main songwriting and production team for Berry Gordy's Motown Records in 1962.
Speaking to The Guardian in 2015, Dozier explained their successful but often arduous songwriting process.
"We'd get there at 9am and we would sometimes work until 3am," he said. "It was blood, sweat and tears. We pounded on the piano and put our ideas down on a little recorder and just worked and worked them out until we came up with things."
"Lots of childhood memories came back to me and I started using them as song titles," the BBC reports.